DAY 9 – PLASTIC AND PARACETAMOL

The day started with a trip to the doctor with my toddler. Luckily, it was nothing major and all I needed for him was paracetamol. This got me thinking about drugs and single-use plastic packaging. I do remember glass jars of tablets as a kid, and you can still buy them filled with vitamins and other supplements in health food shops, but prescription medicine? I’m not so sure.

Junior paracetamol in a glass bottle but with plastic cap and measuring spoon

Off to the chemist I trotted with a tired toddler in tow and after lengthy discussions and investigating a few boxes of medicines, I found this brand, Junior Parapaed, which comes in a glass bottle – hooray! (Unlike the other more popular brands). But, it does still has a plastic cap and comes with a plastic measuring spoon – boo!

Judge me as you will, but I decided that as this is my challenge, not my toddler’s, that denying him medicine for the rest of the month would be utterly ridiculous and downright cruel! (I’m also not subjecting him to the disgusting, non-minty home-made bicarb & coconut oil toothpaste!) The only other option would be for me to ask someone else to buy the medicine for him, but that seemed equally stupid as ultimately it wouldn’t save any plastic at all. So I just got on with it and bought it, plastic cap ‘n’ all.

So officially, that’s it, the world of single-use plastic has beaten me; but hang on…no, I’m not giving up because I don’t think buying medicine for a toddler who can’t buy it for himself counts. Like I said, this is my challenge, not his!

But this incident has really begged the question of what I will do if I get ill or simply get a headache? Is it even possible to get paracetamol or ibuprofen packaged in anything other than single-use plastic and foil packs? You can still get aspirin in bottles, but they’re plastic of course – no surprise there.

No sign of paracetamol sold in glass jars

When I asked in the chemist about non-plastic options, the lady reminisced with me about glass jars but thought that health and safety regulations had probably put a stop to them: It appears that ill people may simply be more likely to drop glass jars than people who frequent health food shops.